The harbour tour
An hour by boat among shipyards and giant container berths — Hamburg's signature activity.
Martina Nolte — CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Huhu Uet — CC BY-SA 3.0 · PaterMcFly — CC BY 3.0 · Wikiolo — CC BY-SA 4.0
The classic tour runs an hour through the container docks and old warehouse channels, and the operators are practically alike — take the next departure. A smart cheaper alternative: public ferry 62 covers much of the same water on an ordinary transport ticket.
By day, entirely: quay, boats and tunnel are all family territory. At night avoid wandering deep into the inner St. Pauli streets nearby — parts are a nightlife district not suited to families.
An hour for quay and tunnel, two with the boat tour. Add a waterside café and half a day slips past unnoticed.
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The Landungsbrücken — the "landing bridges" — are Hamburg's face to its harbour: a seven-hundred-metre floating quay in St. Pauli, where the ocean liners once left, and where every harbour boat tour departs today. The scene here is Hamburg in one frame: cranes and shipyards on the far bank, ferries and tour boats coming and going, and the old green clock tower that also shows the tide level. The harbour boat tour — about an hour — is the city's number-one first-visit activity. From the same quay you enter the Old Elbe Tunnel of 1911: a tunnel under the river with huge wooden-panelled lifts that once lowered cars. Walking through to the far bank is free, and the view of the city's waterfront from the other side is one of the best pictures you will take.
An hour by boat among shipyards and giant container berths — Hamburg's signature activity.
A 1911 tunnel under the river with wooden lifts — walk it free for the far-bank view.
The green tower at the entrance shows time and tide together — the quay's emblem.
The public-transport ferry towards Blankenese — a river cruise for the price of a bus ticket.
Bei den St. Pauli-Landungsbrücken 1, 20359 Hamburg